[ShieldOfFaith answers to criticism of his idea of secession from the United States.]

1. Economy! Economy! Economy! That's all I ever hear about. YOU WILL HAVE NO ECONOMY IF MOST OF YOUR PEOPLE ARE DEAD BECAUSE GOD LAID THE EVER LOVING SMACK DOWN UPON YOU, VIA HURRICANES/ EARTHQUAKES/ FIRES/ FLOODS/ FAMINES/ PESTILENCE/ DIRTY BOMBS...ECT..

2. The Confederacy lost because of arms, munitions, and men. LAZY??? Go tell that to all those who died at Bull Run, Shiloh, Seven Pines or Gettysburg.

Erm, considering that the North still has the advantage over the South out in most areas, I don't see a Second Confederacy going particularly well. More likely than not, it would end up with enormous casualties on both sides(unless either side is stupid enough to use nukes on a country so close to them that they too would be affected by the fallout) and the South as part of the Union again.

And stupidity. They were stupid enough to think that they could win even though outnumbered and outgunned. Add to that the lack of economy (one product, easily produced elsewhere) and it's a wonder they lasted as long as they did. If they hadn't had better generals, they'd have only lasted six months.

I have nothing against our friends in the south and strongly doubt many of them would support this kind of lunacy. But the "Confederacy" today is a net receiver of Federal money. If they actually seceded, the rest of the country could enjoy a nice tax cut and the Confederacy would find itself in a significant hole, even if they could maintain the same level of military for the same cost. Mississippi, for example, receives almost $2 in Federal money for every $1 it pays in Federal taxes. Add to that the question of how much, if any, the seceded Confederacy could claim from the rest of the country's Social Security Trust Fund, and the South would be facing an almost doubling of their taxes.

I suspect that given the choice between seceding or buying a new pickup truck or big-screen HDTV, the majority of people are going to choose to stay in the union.

Fuck it. Let them ceceded and form a Christian theocracy. In a year when they're a third world hell we can just invade and start the Reconstruction all over again since SoF seems hell-bent on recreating the worst of American history.

I find this quote particularly delicious since in point 1 ShieldOfFaith is saying that economy doesn't matter and right after that in point 2 he blames the fall of the South largely on the lack of certain industrial products, which equals to blaming... the economy.

The Confederate Army was starting to lose its nerve -- they saw black soldiers fighting alongside white soldiers, and a lot of them started wondering, if not what they were fighting for overall, whether it was really a good idea to keep enslaved people who were every bit as effective as they were at fighting. (Granted, not enough to keep the spirit of racism alive and enshrined in law for another hundred years, but enough to screw with Johnny Reb's head.)

It didn't help, of course, that the Union Army cut off the Confederate West early on and kept heavily Confederate-sympathetic states such as California and Maryland from splitting off, or that much of the Mississippi Valley was pro-Union to begin with.